The hits fell to left field, right field and center field, with a dribbler down the third-base line for good measure. The Pirates turned a tapestry of singles, doubles and even a triple — but no home runs — off Myers into a 5-3 win.

A Fourth of July crowd of 36,942 saw Myers allow a career-high 13 hits in six innings as the Astros lost for the ninth time in the last 10 games. The Astros staked Myers to leads of 1-0 and 3-1, but the Pirates kept spoiling pitches and finding soft spots in the defense.

“I’d make two straight pitches that were in the other batter’s box, and they’d foul them off somehow,” said Myers, who allowed multiple hits in the first, second, third and fifth innings. “I didn’t think my location was bad at all. They just found holes.”

The Pirates had only three swings and misses against Myers, fouling 32 pitches.

The top three hitters in the Pirates’ batting order — Alex Presley, Chase d’Arnaud and Garrett Jones — set the agenda, going a combined 7-for-13. Number 8 hitter Michael McKenry drove in the Pirates’ first run on a nine-pitch at-bat. Even pitcher Paul Maholm extended a second-inning at-bat to seven pitches in becoming Myers’ only strikeout victim.

“They were hitting balls down in the other batter’s box, away, down, up,” Astros catcher Carlos Corporan said. “They were hitting everything. There’s nothing you can do about that. You’ve got to stay with the plan. Once again, we’ve got bad luck. We’re working hard. This team has a lot of good players. This luck is going to change.”

Astros nemesis

Maholm (5-9) did the same old same old to the Astros, limiting them to one earned run in six innings. He is 11-6 with a 3.22 ERA against the Astros, 41-62 and 4.48 against everybody else.

The Pirates, meanwhile, had nine hits in their first 15 at-bats off Myers (3-8). If not for two assists by right fielder Hunter Pence in the first two innings, they could have inflicted more damage.

The first assist by Pence came in the first, with the Astros leading 1-0. Presley tried to stretch a single into a double, overslid second base and got tagged out by shortstop Clint Barmes.

The second came two batters after McKenry’s run-scoring single tied the score at 1. Third baseman Josh Harrison tried to score from second on a two-out single by Presley, only to get nailed by a strong throw from Pence and a give-up-the-body block of home by Corporan.

“To me, it looked like Myers was throwing the ball pretty well,” Barmes said. “They threw good at-bats on him. What do you do? You’ve got to play the odds and trust that that’s how you play this game. They did a good job of just battling.”

Aided and abetted by three Pirates errors — two on Harrison — in the third, the Astros scored twice to take a 3-1 lead. The Pirates tied the score in the bottom of the inning on doubles by d’Arnaud and Andrew McCutchen and a single by Lyle Overbay. They untied it in the fifth on an infield hit by d’Arnaud and singles by Jones and Neil Walker.

Pitcher’s lament

“It feels like when you’re pitching with two strikes, they fouled them off,” Myers said. “Some of them even bounced up there, and they fouled them off. Sometimes games go like that.”